A lot of youth on our team in the middle of the park. Almost everyone of our midfielders can still be around in four years. What are your thoughts on the future on, arguably, our strongest position?
This is the one position where I'm not worried at all. We have a good amount of young guys on the squad including Edu, Holden, Bradley, Feilhaber, Torres...plus young guys coming through. Mix Diskerud will probably get a look soon. Maybe a few other guys and a couple MLSers.
I doubt it will change much in this coming cycle. They're all relatively settled and young. Unless some kid goes on a tear, I don't see much change.
Starving Gator is right -- during qualifiers, we'll have basically the same set up (clark and beasley will be gone but dempsey and donovan will be elder statesmen). The big question will be who jumps out in the edu/feilhaber/torres central midfield group and who steps up on the outside, other than Holden. But we'll be having the same debates in two years that we are having now...
I can only see a couple of positions opening up. I've never been impressed by Clark on the international scene and Beasley needed a miracle to make it to this World Cup, he'll need more to make it to the next. Torres is on the bubble, he's shown flashes and he's shown nothing. If he doesn't become more consistent he could fall off the radar, or go back to being a fringe player.
There are two segments to consider going forward. One is the Gold Cup next summer which will provide the winner with a Confederation's Cup appearance in 2013 and then there is the three following years qualifying and building up to the next World Cup. LD and Dempsey will be there for the entire ride, but others including Clarke and maybe even Jones will play a role through the next Gold Cup. A challenge for the next coach is to manage minutes through the last three years (as time goes on) to make sure that he does not ride Dempsey and LD too much (as they will probably both not be able to play every minute of every game in 2014 like they did this year) while he grows other midfielders all while qualifying for the world cup. Italy this year and the US in 2006 rode old horses too hard for too long and came up short.
Yeah, we need outside midfielders. Holden is going to move inside if he continues to play inside for Bolton. There aren't any obvious winger prospects ready to contribute right now, other than maybe Diskerud. Cruz and Shea are a maybe, but probably won't get much time until after the Olympics in 2012. Young guys like Gyau and Martinez are still a few years away but may be ready by 2014. The best chance at this point is to look for a revival of Adu and/or Rogers.
Donovan and Dempsey will probably still be starting in 2014, though I could see Holden taking over Dempsey's spot depending on how he develops and Dempsey ages. Bradley is a lock at center-mid. After that there's a wide-open spot.
I think we should immediately start looking for replacements for all of our current players and let them all fight it out. If Donovan and Dempsey are to be starting for us in 4 years, they will have earned it or someone else will have proven they are better, which will be better for everyone.
Bradley could be playing on a top club in four. He has a hell of a ceiling. He and Edu and Torres are the core of the midfield here. They'll all be 26-28 in four. Clint and Landon are hard-working and fit but this was their peak WC alas...they'll be 31 and 32 next time, they'll be around, and they and Bradley still might be the best players we have. But teams whose best two attacking players are 31 and 32 don't tend to do well at the World Cup. Here's hoping Holden and Torres step up, we get at least one other guy who goes from 0 to 60 the way Bradley did, and LD and Clint buck the trends when it comes to players of their ages.
totally agree, we dont wanna end up living on glory of the past and letting seniority rule over the talent.